In mid-September
We cut apart a withered elm
Amid exuberant maples splashing
Multicolored verses
Into the face of the sun.
 
Split elm smells like horse,
Says my young son.
He is right; it is the smell of the core,
As rocks have in their veins
The blood of other rocks.
 
Oak and maple split like glass;
Elm takes your wedge
And swallows it.
Beyond watching grass grow,
Nothing matters.
 
 
In North Coast Review, #20, DEC 2001